Inspection Summary

Overall summary & rating

Christchurch Care is a domiciliary care agency that was providing personal care to 40 older adults living in their own homes at the time of the inspection.

People’s experience of using this service:

People described the care as safe and consistently spoke positively about the caring, friendly, kind nature of both the management and staff team. People were supported by enough staff who provided flexible, responsive care. Staff recruitment checks were robust and ensured staff were suitable to work with vulnerable older people. Staff induction, on-going training and support enabled them to carry out their roles effectively.

Risks to people, including health risks, environmental risks and risks of preventable infection were regularly assessed and understood by staff. When actions were in place to minimise avoidable harm they were respectful of people’s freedoms and choices.

Staff were responsive to people’s changing care needs and pro-active in arranging healthcare or specialist assessments when needed. People had their medicines administered safely by trained staff who regularly had their competencies checked.

Care and support plans were person centred and recognised people’s cultural and spiritual needs and lifestyle choices. People were protected from discrimination as staff had completed equality and diversity training and demonstrated a positive, non-judgemental attitude. Care plans were reviewed regularly with people who told us they felt involved in their care decisions. People had an opportunity to be involved in end of life care plans. When people received end of life care the service worked in partnership with other professional agencies to ensure care was responsive and maintained a person’s comfort.

People were supported to have maximum choice and control of their lives and staff supported them in the least restrictive way possible; the policies and systems in the service supported this practice.

Leadership of the service created an open, positive culture which enabled people, their families and the staff to share ideas, concerns and feedback. Audits, quality assurance processes, accidents and incidents were seen as an opportunity for reflective learning and service improvements.

A full description of our findings can be found in the sections below.

Rating at last inspection: The service was rated ‘Good’ at our last inspection carried out on the 16 August 2016.

Why we inspected:

This was a planned inspection based on previous rating.

Follow up:

We will continue to monitor intelligence we receive about the service until we return to visit as per our re-inspection programme. If any concerning information is received we may inspect sooner.

Inspection ratings

We rate most services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good – the service is performing well and meeting our expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and we've taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which we can’t rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by us and will be published soon.

Ticks and crosses

We don't rate every type of service. For services we haven't rated we use ticks and crosses to show whether we've asked them to take further action or taken enforcement action against them.

There's no need for the service to take further action. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

The service must make improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when we inspected the service and we have taken enforcement action.